April

Bonjour to all! Here’s a little update on us:

Photos! Burkina March and April

Easter (Paques)
We decided to through a Easter get together for our friends and neighbors, as they invited us to their Ramadan and Tabasky celebrations. Of course, Jessi and I had no clue how to prepare food for 50+ people in Burkina Faso, or even what to prepare. No oven, refrigerator, running water, or grocery store really put it beyond our grasp. Our good friend Mimi to the rescue! She helped us plan out the meal, buy everything for the meal, cook the meal, and even clean up. As with most holidays in Burkina, you invite your friends and neighbors to pass by and have a plate of food, so its more like a graduation party than a holiday party back home. Of course, anybody that knows you’re cooking food will stop by, including people you’ve never seen before in your life.

Our culinary input for the day was: 10 chickens (which are nowhere near the size of US chickens), 35 pounds of rice, a five gallon bucket full of veggies, two gallons of oil (no, I don’t want to think about it), two pounds of popcorn, 7 gallons of zoom-koom (a local millet flour drink), a five gallon bucket of ‘gateau de fête’ (sort of like fried sugar cookie cubes), and 40 sachets of drinking water (like 16 ounce bottles, only bags), plus 200 gallons of well water (when you have to take the barrel over to the spigot a half block away and fill it up it is no longer trivial, especially when we ran out and couldn’t go refill because it was closed for the holiday). When all was said and done it turned out to be pretty tasty meal, and not all that expensive.

People came and went from about noon til 7:00 at night. We learned all about serving etiquette (two pieces of chicken per person, so much gateau, so much rice, etc) since unlike at a reunion the hosts are responsible for serving up a plate for everyone that comes by. It was nice to be able to share it with our friends and neighbors, and I know they had a good time.

Before any of the adults came we decided to share a little Easter tradition with some of the kids we knew. We through our every one Easter hunt. We lacked plastic eggs, but through care packages and little boutiques here we were able to amass quite a bit of candy to hide. Our courtyard was perfect for the hunt, with lots of trees, plants, and bricks to hide candies in. It took the kids a bit to catch on to what they were supposed to do, but when they figured it out they were dashing around like mad. Afterwards, the kids colored pictures and dyed hard boiled eggs with a kit that Vern had sent us (it is surprising how well the brown guinea eggs took the color), All and all it was a lot of fun, and we were really glad to have hosted it.

Rain!
The fabled "mango rains" finally arrived this week! Two of them actually! The build up was treacherous, with a couple of scorching hot days, and nighttime lows never dropping below 90 degrees. It came in the middle of the night, and when I went outside in the morning it was a whole new world. No, we didn’t have green grass and chirping birds and rainbows, but the rain had washed away over five months worth of dust that had accumulated on plants and everything else outside, and we had a lake feature in our courtyard. The day after the rain was nice and cool, with highs barely hitting 100 and a low of 75. People talk like there are only one or two of these per hot season, but I hope there are more to come. June’s rains are a long ways away!

April Showers Bring Camelback Spiders
We'd seen one or two already, but all of a sudden they are out in force. They crawl in around our door frame, under our roof panels, who knows where else. I've definitely heard them running around on our metal roof too. I showed one to Patience our cat, but he was mostly uninterested, preferring roaches and scorpions I suppose. If camelback spiders are out of his job description he'll have to figure out some other way to pull his weight around here. Today I've seen five camelbacks in the span of 2 hours, and only been able to kill 40% of them. Yes, all of God's little creatures are precious, but the prospect of waking up with one of these things on my neck seems like justification for their termination. My sheets will certainly get a thorough shaking before I tuck in tonight.

Camelback spiders are also referred to as 'the spider that carries the scorpions.' Figurative, or literal we have yet to see, but I do know the scorpions are more prevalent this time of year too. Yes, more fun awaits us during the hot season, though thankfully we didn't see them any other time of the year (don't worry mom, you'll be fine!).

More weather info you probably weren’t interested in
To my great astonishment Burkina is surprisingly colorful this time of year. As I mentioned before, the mango trees are heavy with their fruits, ranging from golf ball to football sized. It seems like every other tree and plant is following suit with bouquet upon bouquet of flowers. Yellow, red, purple, even those white Hawaiian flowers with the yellow center. Its all very pretty amidst the otherwise Martian landscape.

Our courtyard has been host to many dustdevils, which fortunately have not hit when laundry was drying. Some of them can really make of mess of things, and leave a thick coating of dust onall surfaces. The biggest one I saw was a half mile wide at the base, which was plenty. Fortunately the overall quantity of dust in the air has diminished a bit, so we can see the sun and breathe a little easier.

Teach a man to fish…
I’m working with our local agriculture agency to provide training for a couple women’s groups here on how to grow, dry, and sell Moringa. I think I’ve mentioned this tree before, but it’s a tree that can grow in terrible soil and sustain droughts, but produces highly nutritive leafs. The Peace Corps is really pushing Moringa, as are a number of other agencies. A couple of volunteers have done well with getting women’s groups to work together on a Moringa garden and sell the powder made from the leafs, and the groups make a decent profit on it. I want to see if I can’t get these groups at least moving in that direction. If nothing else, it will improve nutrition for their own families, and that counts too.

Did you know…
Only about 1% of the world’s internet traffic (data uploaded/downloaded, not users) is from the continent of Africa? That seems absurd, but easy enough to believe when you live here. Its even more ridiculous when you estimate that half of the traffic from countries like Burkina is from foreign NGOs (like the Peace Corps) downloading movies and music. The last part is just my estimation, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

Be our guest, be our guest!
As you may have heard, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival my parents and Brian this July, for a two week stay in Burkina. It will certainly not be like their typical summer vacations, but we are busy researching Burkina’s touristy spots and plan to make a good time of it. We are very interested to see what they think of our first home together, and which tô sauce they like best!

Mid-March-Madness

Jessi, wearing her newly made March 8th dress, leads her leadership club in the International Women's Day parade at our site.

Jessi's dance club marches in the parade as well. Hopefully we'll get some photos of them actually dancing posted soon.

Hello again...sorry for the massive delay in bloggage. Jessi had a blog ready in early Feb but we kept forgetting to post it! Life has been busy and every evolving, so lets fill you in a little (photos to come?).

One day in mid february we woke up and discovered the much dreaded and discussed hot season had begun. Everyone here says it started early this year (usually early-mid March), but the real heat will come in April. Its about 108F during the days, with no AC to escape to. Up until the beginning of March the water we drank was at that same temperature, and was anything but refreshing (I don't care if 'warm' water is better for you, it isn't very appetizing). We bought this big clay pot that we fill with water and with a little help from evaporation our water magically cools by 35 degrees. Just like a refrigerator, except the refrigerator usually is taking food from a pleasant 72 down around 37. Sleeping outside most nights on army cots because the mattress just traps too much heat. Overall, despite it being hot we don't actually feel all that warm most of the day. We've become suprisingly accustomed already.

I just wrapped up the second trimester of the school year with lots of test to grade, grades to calculate, and report cards to fill in (it is so much easier back in the states). About 50% of my 375 students are passing, which is pretty good for Burkina. The second trimester went a lot better than the first, which most first year teachers would say. Classroom management can be a real challenge though, and strategies that worked back home don't seem to work here. The last trimester is only a month and a half long, followed by a four month vacation (so people can work the fields). Hopefully I'll have some side projects (tree planting, community gardens, world map painting) to keep me occupied.

Jessi's work has really taken form the past couple of months two, with three girls clubs in full swing amidst other community activities. Last weekend we celebrated International Women's Day (March 8th) which is a really big deal in Burkina and throughout Africa. Jessi's dance club performed in the cultural night and marched in the parade, along with her leadership club. It was a lot of fun to see her girls dance for culture night and to see just how much they enjoy working with Jessi. The parade was typical burkina style with hundreds of people marching behind signs, but they all had to stand under the sun for nearly six hours until the parade started. Yikes! Her work (particularly organizing everything) can be very frustrating and tiring at times, and most people here don't realize it. But she's doing a good job and I know that her actual activities with the girls are rewarding.

Have enjoyed cooking with potatoes for the past two months. I guess we really are midwesterners! Mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, fried, everything. Its a nice changeup, but it's already coming to an end. The first wave of the mango season has arrived. Mangos are everywhere and cheap (about 8 cents for a nice one), which is good news for me but a lot less exciting to Jessi. Our taste buds have evolved in Burkina, and we find now that we don't eat tô (the staple starch of Burkina) once a week that we authentically crave it (though not at the same level as Mabe's around the garden pizza or a burrito de chicharones).

Burkina is preparing for their elections in November. There are 13 candidates on the ballot I believe, though the incumbant is expected to win. Burkina politics are pretty stable, though a bit slanted (ie the incumbant's party limited presidents to two five year terms, but granted the two term president another two terms since the rule wasn't in place when he ran). Elections here happen the date they are scheduled and are generally seen as fair, with voter turnout compareble to the US, all of which is rare for West Africa (see millitary coup in Niger, etc.), so we have to give them credit for that.

Have enjoyed emails, letters and packages. Last week's delivery of Linda's sugar cookies was particularly wonderful! Thank you all. We just marked 9 months in country, which means 18 to go. The whole experience is very challenging but we are trying to make the most out of it for us and the people here. Thank you all for your support and prayers.